Relay For Life: Izzie's Story

Forgive me while I step aside from the crazy, music loving, concert-going Izzie that you all have come to know online and step into a serious role that is my life. I want to share part of my life with you, a part that the majority of you do not know, in hopes that you can help support me to make a difference.


I grew up a middle child of 1 Boy and 3 Girls; I was the middle girl. I still have the middle child syndrome, haha. But one thing that I could appreciate was that my mother never really made my siblings or I feel neglected, or more/less loved that any other. She had a way of making everyone feel loved, at peace, respected and cared for. From her I learned how to be strong, loving and, most importantly, patient.



My mom, Alice, was a very out-going person who could make friends with anyone, even the stranger at the grocery store or the homeless man at the corner. She'd give the shirt off her back, last dime out of her pocket or a place to sleep and a warm meal to anyone in need. I could write a book on the good she had done in her life, but I'm going to try to get to the point here..



Alice developed and auto-immune disease before I was ever even born, so she was sick my whole life; but this never effected her spirit. Then she was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of breast cancer when I was only 12 years old. I remember being in 7th grade and yet in the hospital with her when she had a double mastectomy (breast removal) and went through her Chemo/radiation treatments. The doctors would say the type of cancer she had was so aggressive that most women with this form of malignancy could only survive for a year & a half TOPS! So you could imagine the anxiety I had as a young girl, believing her mother would die at any moment. I continued to live with this for years..



Fortunately, she went into remission for 5 years. She maintained a positive attitude, had a strong faith in God and refused to let go before she saw kids grow up. My family would supported her when she would go to Relay For Life events and we really did raised a lot of money over the years. My Mom always loved the Ocean and wished that she could live near the water. Well, she got her wish, I suppose, but she wasn't specific enough. My father's job relocated us to the Midwest, near Lake Michigan, where she would spend the rest of her life.



When I was around 17 or so, the cancer returned, and slowly would spread to her bones and liver over the next three years. I spent countless hours at doctors offices with her while she had chemo, coached her with physical therapy treatments when she had her hips replaced, gave her shots at home to boost her immune system, I had taken science and anatomy classes in high school so that I could help her decipher what information medical professionals would give her about her blood work and what not... in retrospect, I realize it was a bit much for such a young girl to carry all that on her shoulder on top of work, school, social life, ect. I decided to stay home instead of going away to college to see through that she was taken care of. I mean, what was I suppose to do? How could I leave my dying mother (as my older siblings both did when they were 17) when she needed support the most?



A few years past and she was in and out of the hospital. And on a cold yet sunny winter day, four days before Christmas in 2004, she took her last breath that morning in the hospital while my brother and I sat beside her. She was only 52. I was with her for the entire roller-coaster ride. From the day she came home from the doctors crying, telling me she had found a lump in her breast, to the day she left this earth. I watch her deteriorate and eventually die over the course of my teenage years.



Now don't get me wrong, I'm one of the most fortunate people on earth to have been blessed with such an amazing mother. A woman who positively changed the lives of MANY people. But I also watched a disease take the life of someone who didn't deserve to die such a slow and horribly painful death.


After she passed I saw through that my younger sister graduated high school and afterward I moved back to the East Coast to begin MY life. I needed to learn how to take care of MYself, because all I ever knew how to do was take care of other people. It took me a long time to truly come to terms with what has happened in the past. And honestly, I have not done a single Relay for Life since I was a teenager doing it with her. I'm now 25 and realize that I need to reach out for support to do this just as she needed the support to. All those years that people were raising money, it really was for a good cause. Indirectly, it helped my mother stay alive 7 years longer than predicted with medical and technological advances. I had the chance to spend more time with her than I could have ever hoped for.



Everyone has a story like this. You could ask every person you see throughout the day, and I bet you that 80% of them have someone close to them who has/had cancer or has had it themselves.
So, I decided to finally do this again. As part of the "Woman in Science" Club at my school (Towson University), I will be walking on March 26-27 7p-7a. I'm asking for your support to help me do this for the first time in YEARS. Think about it, you could be helping someone like my mother who deserved to live a longer life. Someone like me who deserved to have a mother.
Even if you can't donate monetarily, your awareness and concern is appreciated.

Thank you,

Izzie





If you would Like to make a Tax-Deductible donation, please visit The American Cancer Society and if you put it under my name (Elizabeth Huyette-Arrizza) I would greatly appreciate it!